Who Will Survive The Walking Dead's Bloodbath Premiere Tonight? [Update]

Tonight marks the return of The Walking Dead, a perfect low-cost date night for any Valentine’s couple. Months ago, the first half of season six ended on one of the show’s largest cliffhangers to date, the invasion of Alexandria by a massive undead horde.

Outside town, Daryl, Abraham and Sasha are staring down Negan’s troops, but inside, the rest of the Walking Dead cast is splintered, and one sizable chunk of characters is trying the extremely risky plan of covering themselves in zombie guts and wading through an ocean of walkers. This plan is dangerous as is, but the cut-to-black finale comes just as young Sam starts moaning about being scared while surrounded by zombies, and all hell seems poised to break lose.

Those involved with the show have avoided specifics about what exactly is going to happen next, but they have not been shy in admitting people are going to die tonight. But who?

I’m going to come at this from a comic perspective, meaning I know who is supposed to die, but given how the show likes to change things up, I don’t think anything is guaranteed tonight. The show likes to mix and match source material deaths when it sees fit, and even if we’re more or less mirroring an exact scene pulled from the comics, it’s anyone’s guess how it’s going to play out. But be warned, comic spoilers will follow.

So, who is possibly on the menu?

Ron and Sam

This one gets a little confusing, because Show Sam is actually Comic Ron, and Show Ron doesn’t actually exist at all. It’s Comic Ron who starts doing the crying while in the zombie masses, and Show Sam doing it on the show. And he’s the one character I will almost guarantee dies tonight. Not just because he’s a twerp and annoying, but because the whole crux of the scene revolves around him taking the first bite.

Ron on the other hand (Show Ron) I’m not as sure about. Since he technically doesn’t exist in the comics, it’s easy to see him dying as well in the chaos, but I’d honestly rather see him live. He’s made a pretty great foil for Carl so far (where Carl is now treating him like Glenn treated Nicholas, and we all know how that worked out) and Enid’s return could create a new dynamic for that relationship. He seems pretty vulnerable, but I hope he lives.

Jessie

So what exactly happens in the comic is that Ron (Show Sam) cries, Ron gets swarmed, and Jessie, still holding his hand, also gets swarmed and bitten. But the problem becomes that she’s holding onto Carl, and Rick has to make the call to literally chop her hand off and leave her to get eaten by walkers in order to save Carl.

Now, there are a few signs that this may be exactly how things play out tonight. Jessie is indeed holding Sam and Carl’s hands as they wade out into the walkers, and Rick does have his giant chopping machete on him. With that said, I almost hope that Jessie makes it out the night alive, and becomes a stand-in for another dead character on the show, Andrea.

As comic readers will know, unlike the show, which killed Andrea seasons ago in the Governor storyline, Comic Andrea is a much different character, and rises to become one of the premiere badasses of the group. Shortly after this attack on Alexandria, she and Rick start up a relationship. It is not a fling, and by the time the comic reaches present day, Rick and Andrea are still together, with Carl calling her “mom.” To cut out that character completely seems odd.

So, my theory is that Jessie could possibly take Andrea’s place in that role. I think Show Jessie has been a lot better developed that Comic Jessie, and I think she has the potential to slide into Comic Andrea’s shoes. Yes, the show may want that “shocking moment” with her and Sam and Carl and Rick, but I think there is another path forward with her if the showrunners wanted to resurrect the long-term Andrea plotline.

Carl

Alright, so Carl obviously isn’t going to die, but the big question has always been whether or not The Walking Dead will actually let this scene play out to its comic conclusion, where a stray bullet hits Carl in the eye, permanently disfiguring him (but not killing him). Right now, we do have a Wolf running around with a loaded gun, which could be the set-up for that (in the comic, it’s Deanna’s character who accidentally shoots Carl), or AMC could forgo it completely. I have not crept through behind-the-scenes set shots, so I genuinely don’t know if this will happen or not.

I’ve said before that this is the most significant moment for Carl’s character in the comics, and I don’t think that the show should take it away from him, either for gore concerns, or all the extra make-up and effects Chandler Riggs will now require in the future. It’s a major turning point for his character, and arguably when he starts becoming the co-lead of the series alongside Rick. I thought it was going to happen in the finale last year, and I’m still pulling for it to happen tonight, but I’m just not sure if they'll pull the trigger. Literally.

Michonne

Oh please. Outside of Rick, I honestly don’t think there’s another more safe character on the show than Michonne. She’s in the zombie guts group like she was in the comics, but she’s going to be completely fine.

Father Gabriel

But Father Gabriel? I’m not so sure. He was not in this little conga line in the comic, and his appearance in the show was downright strange, considering how little he’s been onscreen lately. I have a hunch that the show is going to end up sacrificing him, because A) the actor (Seth Gilliam) probably doesn’t enjoy hanging around for one minute of screen time every three episodes, B) despite remaining alive, Father Gabriel never ends up doing anything particularly noteworthy in the comics, and C) the show is going to have to start slimming down its cast somehow, as they are adding a ton of new characters to the show. Not just Negan and his crew, but Jesus and all the rest of the Hilltop folks as well. I think Gabriel might finally meet his end tonight, a divergence from the comics, but not one many would complain about, I’d imagine.

Morgan

Morgan is an interesting case, because in the comics, he is supposed to die during this assault. He takes a bite, and doesn’t survive. But Comic Morgan and Show Morgan are pretty different. Show Morgan has only recently returned to the cast, and is locked in a physical and philosophical struggle with the kill-happy Carol. In the comic, Morgan ends up romantically involved with Michonne, which hasn’t even been hinted at yet on the show, but still may be in the cards. So while he’s supposed to die during this sequence, I think the show values him more than the comic did, so we’ll see him sticking around a while longer, if not permanently.

Abraham/Sasha/Daryl

This is the trio currently staring down Negan’s crew on the road. I have a hunch they’re all going to make it out alive, but anything’s possible. The way this is supposed to play out in the comic is that when The Saviors demand their stuff, they say “hell no” and murder as many of the bandits as possible, and one gets away to report back to Negan what happened. This sets up future conflict between the two groups, though this scene is supposed to take place after the introduction of the Hilltop colony.

However, given that this is our first official introduction to Negan’s group, I could see them killing either Sasha (who isn’t in the comics) or Abraham (who ends up being killed by Negan’s crew later on). Abraham is not supposed to die for a while yet, but Daryl (not in the comics) has more or less assumed Comic Abraham’s role as Rick’s enforcer lieutenant. I have a creeping suspicion that Abraham may not make it home, though perhaps they can’t pack in too many deaths into one episode. I guess we’ll see.

Obviously that isn’t the entire cast, but I’m not really worried about anyone else (Glenn, Maggie, Enid, Morgan, Carol, Denise, Aaron, Heath) at the moment. That time will come, but for now, it seems like only the people I’ve listed above are at the highest risk of not surviving the night.

How many will we lose? Check back here after the episode where I’ll update this post and talk about what went down.

Update (post-viewing, spoilers follow): Wow, what an episode. Possibly one of my favorites. The critical conga line scene played out nearly the way it did in the comics, but they delayed it a bit from the finale. It was sort of weird to end on Sam freaking out last season, then continue with the premiere apparently ignoring that happened, but eventually the situation repeated itself. Sam cries, gets eaten, Jessie screams, gets eaten (ending my theory about her possibly replacing Andrea), and then Rick hacks her hand off to free Carl (though unlike the comics, it appeared like she was already dead).

The big change, of course, is that finally the Ron drama came full circle and he ended up being the one to shoot Carl in the eye. The show has been setting this up for months now, and I was convinced if Ron was going to do it, he would have done it by now, but the way they did this kind of perfect, and actually better than the way the comic did it with the Deanna character shooting Carl on accident. And most importantly...they shot Carl. It's been unclear if AMC would actually go through with this aspect of his storyline, considering they avoided chopping off Rick's hand like in the comics. And even for The Walking Dead, shooting a child in the face is a pretty serious violent incident, so they may have been skittish of that.

But this needed to happen. Carl has too much relying on this character turn to avoid it, and now even though we have to play "Carl recovers from being shot game" like we did in season two for who knows how long, it's going to be worth it.

Elsewhere, no one else who could have died, did die. Father Gabriel finally manned up and killed zombies, as did Eugene and all the rest of the usually cowardly townsfolk, which was a great climax to the episode. And the group on the road is fine, having simply obliterated Negan's group with the RPG, which was one of the more fantastic intros of the series to date. With that entire posse killed, will Negan actually know who killed them? In the comic, a few members escape, which is kind of key. But I guess he'll figure it out eventually.

I am sad to lose Jessie (Ron and Sam, not so much) though I applaud the show for sticking with the comics and only changing them for the better when they needed to. Great episode all around.